I am grateful for:- a truly wonderful 30th birthday- my amazing BF making that day, and every day, feel like such a gift- open lines of communication (and my ongoing devotion to improving my own ability to communicate effectively)

Ive decided Im going to buy an extended warranty for the new car. It needs to be purchased by the first week of August. That means I wont have enough cash, and will have to put it on a cc. FAIL. Total cost is $2k.

This will delay my cc debt payoff by 1 month, which deeply saddens me. But the delayed cc debt payoff seems worth not having to deal with the risk of something catastrophic going wrong with the vehicle. Even the average cost of repairs, according to the calcs I looked at, seem to indicate the warranty (on avg) will pay for itself. Plus, its a form of insurance. Porsche's arent exactly cheap to fix, and having the warranty will give me some added piece of mind.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

1) My original goal set in October was to reduce by cc debt by 30k before my 30th bday. I revised that goal down (thinking it was too ambitious) to say Id pay 30k towards my debt by my 30th bday, with interest that wouldnt be a 30k reduction in debt. I HAVE DONE BOTH! My cc debt was at 43k in Oct and now is about 6k.

2) I bought a car!!! Ive moved in with the BF, and the loft is not in SF proper. I didnt *need* a vehicle, but I did want one. Id been wanting something I could take on my dozen+ days to Tahoe in the winter too. I bought a 2004 Porsche Cayenne S with 33k miles for 10k under BlueBook. Amazing deal :)

Im still coming to terms with the reduced amount of cash I have each month to save/pay towards debt every month, but I think this was a great choice.

3) I need to formalize my new goals. Ill do this in another post. Roughly they look like:* finish all cc debt payoff ASAP. Sept 1 seems about right.* create at least a 10k emergency fund* payoff car sooner than later, Im not sure if this is just doubling my month payment or throwing a few thousand a month at it.* by Jan 1 enroll in 401k and max out for 2009* figure out post tax % of income to save, is 20% too aggressive?* figure out student loan repayment plan. Because its at 3.9%, I may not worry about trying too hard there.